


Nulli Expugnabilis Hosti

by littlelizardtails (dragonfucker)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I mean it could almost be mchanzo if you squint, but yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 22:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonfucker/pseuds/littlelizardtails
Summary: Prompted by unlimitedpoptarts.





	

There was a photo on the ground, nearly hidden under bits of rubble. Crouching, Jesse picked it up, carefully turning it over in his metal fingers. He recognized it, an old one not yet beginning to fade; Winston’s graduation party. He himself had been in attendance, posing dramatically the way he'd learned from mimicking Reyes. It was creased now, but fortunately, otherwise unharmed.

 

“We should leave.”

 

The cowboy didn't startle, though it was a near thing; Hanzo Shimada was as silent as his brother, and somehow even more unsettling for how he did it without any kind of enhancements. Looking over his shoulder, Jesse saw the man standing a couple of yards behind him, arms folded across his chest; his expression was clouded, frustrated.

 

“Ain't exactly my call, pardner,” Jesse drawled, rising back up and slipping the photograph into his pocket.

 

“You see this is foolishness, do you not?” Hanzo insisted, unfolding his arms to gesture at Jesse. “Things are not as they were before the fall. Overwatch is illegal, it is no longer supported by the world’s governments. To stay here, in a place where all your enemies know where you are, and can attack at any time--this is only the beginning. If we remain here, they will be back, and others like them, as well.”

 

Jesse thought knew why Hanzo was coming to him with this; despite a rough start (only natural, he felt, given Hanzo had tried to murder Genji, Jesse’s friend) once they had started to trust each other more the two of them had actually found that they had more in common than with most of the rest of the team. It was a comfortable familiarity, being around someone else who knew what it was like to spend years on the run, to live the sort of life they did. And his time in Blackwatch had given Jesse a lot of the same insights that Hanzo’s criminal upbringing had, though admittedly with little of the dignity and class.

 

Jesse saw exactly the point Hanzo was making. Hanzo was, after all, right. His frustration was probably due to having failed to make the others see reason, leaving him to vent to the only other person on this rock who would likely see sense.

 

Jesse chuckled ruefully at the thought, shaking his head and glancing around them at the destruction left in the wake of Talon’s attack. Funny, that Hanzo was relying on the man in the cowboy getup to be reasonable.

 

“I know that,” he said, “And you know that. Truth be told, I reckon there's a fair few folks here that know that.”

 

“Then why do they refuse to leave?” Hanzo demanded. “A new base at a location that is not on record with the UN would be vastly more defensible than this.”

 

“It would be,” Jesse easily agreed, nodding his head to Hanzo’s words. “But it wouldn't be home.”

 

“Foolish,” the other man scowled. “We were fortunate to suffer no losses. Next time we may not fare so well.”

 

“I know that, just as well as the rest of ‘em.”

 

“Yet you too would agree to stay here?”

 

“Well s’not like I’m gonna abandon them again.”

 

With a derisive noise, Hanzo turned his face away, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at one of the ruined buildings of the base, smoke still curling from where pulse munition had blown through it’s walls. Silence settled in between them as Jesse, too, took in the sight of the base around them.

 

“...if you could go home, would you?” he finally asked, causing Hanzo’s eyes to flicker back to him once more.

 

“It would never happen. It is pointless to consider,” the man answered, but Jesse only chuckled, making Hanzo’s frown deepen.

 

“Humour me, darlin’. If you could go back--  _ all _ the way back-- if you could go back to where you felt secure, with your family around you, no longer having to go it by yourself, would you?”

 

When the silence returned, even the wind had gone still. Everything seemed to wait, breathless, anticipating. Jesse watched Hanzo, blue kyudo-gi so dark in the red-orange light of the setting sun, took in the way his brow furrowed as he turned over the cowboy’s words in his mind.

 

“...I do not know,” he finally said quietly, not looking at Jesse.

 

“...Home’s a powerful thing.” Spurs jangled as Jesse moved, stepping forward until he was in front of Hanzo. “For all’a us from the old guard, this is home. This is where we found a family, where some’a us ain't never had one before.” His metal hand rose to clasp Hanzo’s bare shoulder, squeezing so gently. “It might not be no Hanamura, but hey--least you got one’a your kin here. Might could be ya find somethin’ more.”

 

His hand lingered there a moment longer, before finally letting go and dropping as he finally moved past Hanzo to regroup with the others. “In any case,” the gunslinger called back as he went, “We already got driven outta our home once before. Try not t’blame us for not bein’ too keen on lettin’ it happen again.”

 

He disappeared around a corner, leaving Hanzo alone in the red-stained rubble, with only his words and his thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> "Nulli expugnabilis hosti": the motto of Gibraltar and it's royal regiment. Translates to "conquered by no enemy", or alternatively, "no enemy shall expel us".


End file.
